Not a prob. Sorry for my late reply to your late reply.....
No, but it's rather easy to redistribute resources to where they are better suited to avoid this. How? Well, for starters, you hire people to police the programs. Find out if the benefits are being used wisely or wasted. If someone KNOWS that someone ELSE is watching what they do with OUR tax dollars, they are less likely to waste them. Same with welfare, same with unemployment, same with SSI. All of it needs to be policed by someone. Right now, none of those public assistance programs are being monitored. If they were, we wouldn't have 13 yr olds collecting thousands every month while their mom and dad can readily support them or 25 yr old unemployed baby factories sitting around watching Oprah collecting benefits for her 5 children whom she readily admits doesn't care to make the FATHERS support them. That's bullshit any way you cut it and has nothing to do with which side of the tracks you live on. It's a mental state to where you are PROGRAMMED to expect to be supported rather than support yourself.
Neither. As I explained above, efficiency could be greatly increased with the resources we already have. All we have to do is WANT to make it more efficient. Problem is that poor people VOTE. So that means politicians want to pander to that VOTE. They won't make radical changes because it will be PERCEIVED as "your taking MY benefits away" rather than "NO, I'm trying to have more money available for and IF you REALLY need it..." So they lose a VOTE and we get our tax money....MONEY EARNED BY WORKING.....wasted.
No public assistance program was ever designed to be a support structure, only ASSISTANCE....i.e. you eventually get OFF the system and support yourself. We all know or have read about people that not only have been on public assistance their ENTIRE life, but also their children who somehow or another end up in the same rut......why is that??
Obviously you've never made over a $100k yet, have you?
The way it REALLY works is like this: You make over $100k, and you have $30K taken out of your check. That doesn't change your bills. That doesn't change the fact that the gov't TOOK $30K from you to give to someone else to squander. If you make $20k, they only take $3k if that. So now tell me.....is the $100k/yr person MAKING 10x's more than the $20K/yr person??? NOPE. He makes 5x's more, but PAYS 10x's more taxes.......How's that work out towards that "fairness" thing again????
Add to that how many "benefits" that $100k/yr person USES UP from his/her tax dollar base......now you have someone PAYING a big chunk of his/her HARD EARNED salary each year YET not using any of the public assistance programs he/she is funding.......
.....HMMMM, that doesn't seem "fair" now does it? Add to that how 99.9999% of everyone making any money PAYS for their own INSURANCE too.....now you have no use of public assistance that way too......Again, how fair is it that someone that works hard to get to $100k/yr should be PENALIZED and MADE to support someone that has no aspirations of being anything other than TAKEN CARE OF???? How fair is that?
No. Schools should be made to compete just like any other form of commerce.
If you get crappy service from a restaurant, what do you do??? NOT come back and tell all your friends not to go there, right? Eventually they either shape up or ship out and go bankrupt, right? What happens in that void? Nothing, because another restaurant is there to fill it. It's called supply and demand.
Gov't schools right now don't have that. They operate under a monopoly structure. You get told which one you have to attend, period. Your only other choice is either to move to a better district or go private or suck it up.
Now, insert competition into the mix. Give teachers tenure based on their STUDENTS test scores. If they breed shitty students, then they don't deserve tenure. Give schools funding based on STUDENTS scores and achievements. Put out bad students, get bad funding.
Now insert CHOICES. Give parents a voucher equal to their school tax portion of their property taxes to go towards WHATEVER school they CHOOSE to take their children to. Now, the "better" schools would get ALL THE FUNDING they need to stay a "better" school via paid tuition. After all....isn't that what everyone perceives is the "problem"......lack of funding in your "poor gov't schools"????
Then problem solved. There's funding.
What you would see is not even distribution at all, but you would see RESULTS. You would see better schools because if you didn't improve people wouldn't want to attend therefore you'd eventually have to close. Voila! That's how business is ran in the real world. Why should Gov't have laws against monopolies, yet it not apply to them???
Exactly as the example I gave of my Grandfather. He paid all his life. Got less than 2 yrs worth of "benefits" and passed away. Now my Grandmother is left behind w/o him to help her, yet SSI pays her....NOT the part that my Grandfather was legally entitled to for paying all his life into it and they would still be paying if he were alive.....but a miserable portion because SHE has her own retirement money SHE saved and EARNED.
How's that for SSI being there for you for your retirement?
Actually exponentially more.
Higher income earners pay out the nose for benefits they will NEVER SEE. When they get to retirement age, they will have pensions or 401K or retirement money accrued from their years of WORKING. As explained above, that means what???? They will NOT get ANY SSI because they planned ahead and thought about their retirement. So they paid all their lives so SOMEONE ELSE could benefit. Again, how's that fair???
DING DING DING!!!!! We have a winner.
That's exactly what should happen. Let people determine their own futures. Let them KEEP the portion of their EARNED money that would have gone into SSI, and INVEST that into something that will both help the economy as a whole AND yield them MORE money for retirement. We can easily do that. Re-investing in OUR own economy. Imagine that concept. More companies would have more money to expand, which would create more DOMESTIC jobs, which would give people more spending money to again help out the economy, which would then put more people OFF public assistance, which would then net MORE money available for those that TRULY need it......wow, what a concept, huh?
So let me get this straight: You'd rather have a system that OBVIOUSLY doesn't work (i.e. is going bankrupt and heavily into debt since decades ago) and makes people PAY that they KNOW won't ever GET paid back.....or would you rather see MILLIONS more people be independently wealthy when they get to be 65????? Hard choice to make, isn't it???
Know why it won't happen??? VOTES. Politicians can't be eloquent enough to explain things in those terms to their constituents, so they maintain the present course. God forbid if they would have their poor uneducated voters in their district THINK that they are going to get less benefits......uufff, you'd lose votes then. Can't have that. So we maintain a course that puts us on a collision course to nowhere without a future for MILLIONS of people that will just continue that perpetual cycle of public assistance.
I'd rather leave my children something to continue their lifes fruitfully than the address to the welfare office. Don't you?
Atleast you agree with me that people who plan for their future, don't ever require assistance down the road.
To answer your question, because it only serves to reward people for making bad choices.
CHOICE.
How do you "support" your family @ minimum wage? Again, bad CHOICE.
Why not? There are far more grants and programs for lower income families than there is for anyone else. HOPE SCHOLARSHIP FTW (that's the first and last time I've ever used FTW
).
Do they not know how to read and write? Then why would someone else have to "tell you" anything? How many famous people are there that came from poor backgrounds??? Lots. What's the difference between their ghetto and today's ghetto? Desire and attitude, that's the difference. If you think you're only good for welfare, then welfare is the only thing you'll ever get. Again, bad choice.
What resources is it that are not available? ALL resources START out with the premise that there are choices for even the lower income brackets. So exactly what resources is it that they wouldn't have access to???
Number 1. Yes I can blame people for their mistakes. They didn't ask me to join them when they were having sex, right? So, why should I have to PAY for their child?
Number 2. It is once again a CHOICE to have sex or not. There are tons more CHOICES for contraception today than there were 50 yrs ago, yet 50 yrs ago you had LESS babies being born out of wedlock.....how's that work?
Number 3. There are tons of people that made mistakes when they were young, yet went on to be fruitful and contributing members of society. A child born out of wedlock IS NOT a death sentence nor is it an automatic ticket to welfare. It does increase your chances. It does make it harder to achieve your goals. But it's not impossible. Again, it boils down to attitude and desire. If you are bred to fall back on your behind everytime the going gets tough because you KNOW the welfare's address by heart, then that's what you instill in your children who then will go on to instill it in their children.
I 10000000% agree with you there....we just have 2 different ways to make it happen.
Bet. I volunteer at the Gwinnett Co. Juvenile court as a member to the panel that hears child custody cases from DFACS. We determine what's in the child's best interest and make recommendations and testify directly to the judge as to what we think should happen. So trust me, been there done that and bought the shirt.
I am also a Lay Pastor at my church. Some of my duties require me to visit hospitals and shelters whenever necessary. I see sick and dying people on a regular basis. I also see needy people and help coordinate different programs our church has to help them. I see the down and out people and I see the dying people.....both have something in common.....they want someone to talk to. Most of my work in that capacity is counseling.
So trust me, I see the people that REALLY need help. I also see the people that are squandering it away daily on everything from the store to TV.
BTW, abuse is having two arms and two legs and having decent health and NOT going out to get a job. Abuse is having 5 kids from 5 different partners and not making a single one pay for it. Abuse is committing fraud to get SSI for your kids whom you KNOW don't have ADD.
Trust me, there are far more committing abuse than you think.
You don't know me, but trust me I try and do plenty. Why do you think I got involved with the courts? The main reason was because after calling DFACS and getting "sorry, but we just have a big case load and can't help you...", I thought that children (who are the only true innocents) deserved a voice in their well being. Sometimes their parents have no clue nor desire to look at that FIRST. When I review their cases, I look at that FIRST.
So to answer your question, you are correct in a way. I am by far not doing as much as I could to change it myself. But I am trying.
The point is not that she needs it or not. She has a family. She will NEVER go without. It's the principle. The principle that someone, my Grandfather, worked his entire life. Worked menial jobs, long hours, in crappy conditions to raise his family. They never got welfare, although my dad and my uncle were raised in terrible housing in NY when they were little. No heat, 1 bedroom, walking to school in the freezing cold......you know the old story our Grandparents tell us....only for real. Bottomline is that they pulled themselves out of that situation into better ones, until eventually they prospered. My own parents struggled before we moved to Georgia. I remember not having running hot water in our 2 room house. I remember getting IOU's at Christmas because my parents didn't have the money to buy us the things we wanted. I remember having to walk, for about 5 miles each way, thru alleys and passing people doing drug deals, just to go to school. I remember having only 1 car for the whole family....a 1978 Camaro....2 doors, 4 kids.....and DEALING with it. My dad had to drop off my mother downtown only to then drive all the way up to Gainesville to his work, only to do it all again in the afternoon, only to then come COOK for us.......
I wasn't born with a silverspoon in my mouth, trust me.
By the same token, why should you reward them for making bad choices?
As I said above, children are indeed the innocents. I have nothing against them at all. So I agree with you.
See, that's the problem. People have CHOICES. Those CHOICES are what for the most part make or break you. NOT OTHER PEOPLE. The "man" mentality is what some people take seriously. The "man" is keeping me down, the "man" is keeping me from going to school, the "man" is not letting me make $100k/yr. It's not the "man", it's the attitude. Noone EVER wins if they feel defeated before the fight even starts.
Originally Posted by Jaimecbr900
Not a prob. Sorry for my late reply to your late reply.....)
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